Golden Filly Collection One (82 page)

Trish lifted the silver lid from her plate. “It even smells good.”

“Let’s say grace together.” Hal reached for Trish’s and Marge’s hands on either side of him. Then David joined the circle.

“Father, we thank you for this food. Thanks too for a safe trip and for taking good care of our family. Thank you for a new morning, a new day in which to praise you. Amen.” He opened his eyes and looked intently at each of them. “You have no idea how precious you are to me.”

Trish bit her bottom lip to keep the tears from flowing. She lifted the silver dome again to inhale the aroma of fresh bacon and hot cakes. That bought her time to get the tears swallowed. She didn’t want to cry again this morning. It was a time to be happy. They were all together.

She stole a peek at David. He was drinking his orange juice, not looking at anyone. Marge’s hand covered Hal’s, and her eyes were wet with tears.

“We sure missed you two,” Trish managed. “But we made it. Things have been running pretty smoothly.” She spread butter on her pancakes and poured syrup as though it were a typical Sunday morning. “I think Spitfire missed you too.”

Marge shook her head and quipped, “Too bad he couldn’t have joined us for breakfast.”

“Now that would not have been a bad idea,” Hal said, waving his fork. “Then I wouldn’t have to drive clear over there to watch him. And Trish would have more study time.”

Trish shook her head and groaned. “Don’t mention studying. Have any of you ever read
War and Peace
?”

“Yeah, it’s a real snoozer.” David poured coffee for himself, then his parents.

“It’s a classic,” Marge said, sipping her coffee. “A wonderful story.”

Trish and David exchanged glances. Their eyes said
Parents!

“Mother,” David said seriously, “you’d have to be looney-tunes to love
War and Peace.
”

“Thank you for that comment on my taste in literature. Coming from someone who thinks the funnies and the sports page are all that matters in a newspaper, I’m complimented.”

Trish let her family’s laughter and good-natured banter flow around her like a warm tide. She ignored the dark lines and gray tinge of her father’s face. And when his trembling hands raised the coffee cup to his lips, she looked the other way. Nothing would spoil this moment for her.

The coffee drinkers were on their second cups, and Trish swirled the last bit of orange juice around the bottom of her glass. Wishing they’d ordered more, she relished the last drops.

“So, Dad, what’s going on with you?” David asked casually.

David, how could you?
Trish felt like screaming at him.

Hal pulled on an ear and ran a finger around the rim of his cup. Finally he raised his gaze.

If Trish had never seen haunted eyes, she was seeing them now. She clenched her teeth against the pain she knew was coming.

“Well, the tumors in my lungs haven’t grown any.”

Trish let out the breath she’d been holding.

“But they found—” Hal swallowed, then continued. “The cancer has metastasized; that is, it’s traveled to somewhere else—to the liver and pancreas, in my case. That’s why the doctors decided to try a new protocol.”

Trish felt as if she were trying to swim to a surface that was out of reach. She was drowning.

“But—but I thought God was healing you! You said He always answers our prayers!”

“He does, Trish, He does.” Her father leaned toward her. “Or I wouldn’t be here now. Remember, they didn’t hold out much hope last fall when they found the first tumors. And those shrunk.”

“But now it’s worse?” Trish stared into her father’s dark brown eyes.

“Is that what you mean?”

“I mean that we continue to pray. We know that God knows what He’s doing—”

“Maybe you do, but not me. I don’t know any such thing right now.” Trish pushed herself to her feet, catching the chair before it toppled to the floor. When would she be able to breathe again? “Excuse me.” Her voice stuck in her throat. She felt as if she were slogging through mud on her way to her bedroom. She closed the door carefully behind her, as if being quiet would change what her father had just said.

She collapsed on the bed, clutching a pillow under her chin. “God, you’d better not let my father die. You promised to make him better. I read those words, I even memorized them. You said, ‘By His stripes you are healed.’” She beat her fist into the pillow.

“My Dad trusts you. You can’t let him down.” She rolled over and wrapped her arms around the pillow. “You can’t. You can’t.” She let the tears flow.

The pain in her chest clawed deeper. Was this what a broken heart felt like? She wiped her eyes and sat up. It seemed like hours had passed when she pulled off her boots and shoved her feet into her running shoes.

“I’ll come with you,” David said when she opened the door to leave.

“No!”

“Sorry, no choice. You can’t run around here by yourself.”

“You’re not my boss!” Trish threw the words over her shoulder as she thundered down the stairs.

David never responded. He just kept a few paces behind her.

Trish’s feet pounded the gravel, then the concrete sidewalk. She crossed a grassy field, ran up a hill, gasping for breath but refusing to stop. Downhill she picked up speed. At the bottom she slipped in a patch of mud but caught herself and ran on.

David dogged her steps. Trish could hear him struggle for breath too. The challenge? To run David into the ground. Her sides screamed with pain—her lungs, her legs. Finally she dropped to her hands and knees under a tree—and threw up. She gagged and retched and heaved again till there was nothing left but a feeling of complete exhaustion.

When she could move, Trish crawled to the trunk of the tree and leaned against it.

David lay on the grass nearby, his face on his arms.

“You didn’t have to come.” Trish finally spoke.

“I know.”

Trish sat with her back against the tree, her knees drawn up to her chest. She closed her eyes, listening—
for what?
Her nagger could finally make himself heard above the poundings in her body.

You blew it again. Every time you hit a problem you blow it.
Trish shoved herself to her feet. “Let’s see about getting back. Any idea which way to go?”

David pointed to the left.

It
was
a long walk back.

For the next two days, Trish felt as if she were on a roller coaster. One minute she’d be up—mostly when she was at the track. Then all the fears would catch up and she’d crash down again. She gave up praying. Why pray when God wasn’t listening anyway? Her Bible verses? Hardly! She gritted her teeth and kept on.

Working the horses, schooling Spitfire and Sarah’s Pride, and studying. She smiled when she was supposed to, answered when people spoke to her, was polite when journalists asked her questions.

She even joked with the trainer for Nomatterwhat. He had a good sense of humor even if his horse didn’t.

Trish could keep the mask in place. She knew she could. She
didn’t
open her Bible. She
didn’t
allow the songs in, and she stayed away from the carved eagle—and her father. The latter wasn’t so difficult. He slept most of the time.

One night she found a familiar three-by-five card on her nightstand. Her father’s usually bold printing was a bit shaky but the verse was plain.
“I will never leave nor forsake” (Hebrews 13:5).

Ha! What a joke!
Trish wanted to rip the card up. Instead, she stuck it in her history book. She could deal with this setback. After all, she was tough. Wasn’t she?

Chapter

08

L
et him out for half a mile, no more,” Hal told Trish on Wednesday morning. “The stopwatches will be on you.”

Trish nodded. She smoothed Spitfire’s mane to the right and stroked his neck. “Okay, fella, let’s do it.” She trotted him around the track and broke into a slow gallop just before the half-mile pole. As they passed the marker, she let him loose.

Spitfire showed top form as he fairly sizzled around the track. He was still picking up speed as they flashed past the finish line. Trish stood high in her stirrups to bring him back down. “Easy now. Come on, you know the rules. Save it for Saturday.”

Spitfire shook his head. He wanted, needed to run—all out.

“Don’t tell me, let me guess.” Trish grinned at the three men who waited for her at the exit gate. Patrick and David both clasped stopwatches in their hands. “Wasn’t he fantastic?”

Patrick nodded. “That he was, lass.” He grabbed his hat just in time. Spitfire was getting sneakier in his hat tosses. “You black clown, you.” Patrick rubbed the top of his bald head and settled the fedora back in place—firmly.

Trish couldn’t help giggling. Spitfire wore his “Who me?” look, his head slightly off to the side in case someone planned on smacking him. David loved it when
he
wasn’t the object of Spitfire’s pranks. Hal leaned against the fence, a grin erasing the look of weariness that now seemed permanently grooved on his face.

“So, what do you think?” David asked after stealing a peek at his watch.

Trish concentrated. “Ummm—forty-nine and three.”

“Wrong. Forty-nine and one,” David gloated. “You’re off by two tenths of a second.”

“Your watch keeps getting more and more accurate, Tee.” Hal stroked Spitfire’s nose. “An accurate internal stopwatch is the one thing that sets
great
jockeys apart from the rest. Did you push him?”

“Not really. But I can always tell the time easier on Spitfire. I s’pose it’s ’cause I know him so well.” She leaned forward to give Spitfire a hug. He tossed his head and flipped David’s Runnin’ On Farm hat off in the process. Trish giggled again. “See you guys at the barn before we get into any more trouble here.”

Trish caught herself humming on the walk back to the barn. No matter how hard she tried, the melody broke through: “I will raise you up…” She rotated her shoulders to release some of the tension. If only she could be riding and racing all the time, without a moment to think about what was happening in the rest of her life.

While the Evanstons were skipping most of the festivities of Preakness week, Thursday morning proved the exception. Trish and David finished up the chores quickly so they could join their parents and Patrick at the Sports Palace for the post position breakfast.

“Mr. Finley!” Trish was surprised to see him.

“It’s Adam, remember? It’s good to see you, Trish. You didn’t think we would miss this, did you?” Adam and his wife, Martha, circled the white-clothed table to give Trish a hug.

“Hang in there,” Martha whispered in Trish’s ear.

Trish felt the familiar burning behind her eyes. She blinked it back.

“Mr. and Mrs. Shipson.” Trish shook hands with the owners of BlueMist Farms.

“Congratulations on your riding,” the silver-haired Donald Shipson told her. “Spitfire looks magnificent.”

“Thank you.”

“My dear, you are a credit to women everywhere,” Bernice Shipson added in her soft Kentucky drawl. “We have a filly entered in tomorrow’s third we’d like you to ride.”

“Be glad to,” Trish answered, smiling. This woman was easy to like. If Spitfire had to go to another farm, at least these people seemed like family.

Trish caught Patrick’s nod of approval as she slid into the chair next to her father. He reached over and patted her hand, sending a warm glow all the way to her heart.

Crystal chandeliers, plush carpet, beautiful table settings, all set off the richness of the Sports Palace. Here the wealthy came to play, but Trish didn’t feel out of place. Her family had earned their position here by right of excellence. Her gaze wandered to the gallery of oil portraits of jockeys who had won the Preakness. The display extended around the corners of the room. Would
her
picture join the elite one day?

Trish could feel her butterflies trying out their wings as the drawing got under way. They were seventh on the list of nine.

Nomatterwhat headed the list. The Steward drew number three. The numbers ninth, fifth, seventh, and eighth followed. Trish clenched her fists in her lap. Did they have to take so long between draws? A cheer went up. Equinox drew the post. The next number would be theirs.

Hal draped his hand across the back of her chair and gripped Trish’s shoulder. She flashed him a quick smile and turned back to watch the draw.

“Position number two. Spitfire, owned by Hal Evanston.”
Between Equinox and Nomatterwhat,
Trish thought.
One’s a pain in the neck and the other our chief contender from the Derby.

Trish dragged in a deep breath. At least they didn’t have as far to run this time. They could take the pole and just run the others into the ground.

“That’ll be good,” Hal said. He nodded and patted Trish’s shoulder.

As soon as the final two numbers were called, the crowd was on its feet, including the media. Several reporters gathered around the Evanstons, questions tumbling out. Trish listened with one ear while David slipped away. She couldn’t get away if she wanted to; her father stood, putting his hand on her shoulder.

“What about your health, Mr. Evanston?” one of the reporters asked. “Could that keep you from running in the Belmont?”